


Asphalt

by Becra1



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Depression, Gen, Intrusive Thoughts, Panic Attacks, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 10:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7570249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Becra1/pseuds/Becra1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave learns the hard way that unproductive does not mean lazy, and sometimes relaxing can be exhausting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Asphalt

**Author's Note:**

> Dave is dealing with an anxiety attack here, so please be careful as it might be triggering. Let me know if I missed any tags<3

It’s been… shit, you don’t know. Thirty minutes? An hour or four? Time is arguably an abstract bunch of dickery anyway, who cares if you’re not all over that mess. Either way, you’re still tired. Your sheets are a little dirty considering you haven’t had the energy to clean them in a while, but let's get real: that’s not gonna stop your plush ass from luxuriously rolling around in them for a few more weeks (months) or so.

Bro has been gone for a couple days, but you get the feeling he’s still not going to be back for a while. He would have set just enough shitty traps to last his absence, but so far they’ve been pretty nicely paced with not an end in sight. Lucky you.

So here you are, not doing a goddamn thing, as your aforementioned, loving brother would put it, staring at the ceiling, entangled in your sheets, and wearing the clothes you slept in (you’ll change them later probably). You would turn on the tv to make the scene a little more… you don’t know, festive? Productive? But you have nothing to prove to anyone so minus well not run up the electricity bill.

This is actually... very nice. Without your bro home, you could stare at the ceiling and do nothing for hours without consequence, a fact that you have set out to prove and conquer today. That’s how you’ll justify this, at least. Don’t worry about the guilty nagging in the back of your head that’s occasionally making your breathing freak out and that’s consequently really stretching your damn patience. You’ve gone about an hour without incident, so you suppose that’s progress if nothing else. 

You take a deep breath and finally work up the energy to roll onto your side. You can see your whole room now, VIP status motherfucker. You’re also now able to reach your phone without any issue so there’s another plus. It vibrates with a new notification and you go to grab it.

_So that’s how you’re going to waste your life now? Get on fucking Tumblr and ignore all the shit you have to do?_

Damn it.

_What about the dishes in the sink? Or the floors that should have been swept days ago? What about the disgusting pile of laundry you’ve been so eagerly collecting, or that project that you’re probably gonna fail anyway? It’s coming up fast and you haven’t even started. You haven’t done anything, and it’s your fault. It's your fault. It's your fault. You’re despicable._

Shit. Here comes another one, you guess.

_You’ve got so many fucking messages, aren’t you gonna answer them? You’re lucky they even want to talk to you, you’re so fucking boring and unoriginal. This is it, this is the last time they’re gonna try. You better answer or they’re gonna give up on you._

You feel your breathing picking up speed, and your heart feels like it can't hold up the weight of your chest anymore. You feel clammy, if that's a way to feel, like your stomach is rolled up and cold. You feel sick, you feel light-headed, you feel like you want to be anywhere but here, forgotten in an apartment where no one cares if you live or die. Your hand is shaking, sweating, and instead of doing what it’s fucking supposed to, clenching hard into a fist. Oh fuck, you feel like this one’s gonna be bad.

_It wouldn’t even be hard, they don’t even like you. They didn’t put you in that group chat last December, remember? Yes, of course you do. How could you forget, holding on to things with the vice grip that is your insecurity. They’ve been trying to get rid of you for a long time. Can you even blame them, kid?_

It hurts. It's too much, it _hurts_. Your eyes are starting to sting, come on Dave, don't be so dramatic. You put every ounce of effort you have in your being into sitting up. Your hands won't stop fucking _shaking_! 

_They don’t want you. Nobody wants you. Who would want a lazy, unproductive, disgusting pile of garbage? Nobody wants you. They’re stuck with you. Not even Bro wants to hang with you. Nobody wants you._

It’s not slowing down. Usually they come in waves, leaving you exhausted and bloody in the aftermath, but this one feels like a storm, feels like it's only brewing. You wish you could think fast enough to counter even just a little bit. You recognize the signs that it’s getting worse; your heart's racing, you're shaking bad enough that you can barely fucking think! It’s not true, Rose told you! Shit, you’re panicking. Shit shit shit. What did she say to do? Deep breaths… oh god oh god its right! _Its right no one wants you!!_ No, nonono! No, come on what else did she say! 

Water! Water could help!

You put a disheartening amount of effort into just getting off of your fucking bed. Your body is begging you not to move, you want to stay here where it's safe, where Bro and your own stupidity can't hurt you. Your body is begging you to stay. Your shoulders are hunched from your arms wrapping around your body, but suddenly both of your feet are touching the ground, and at some point one of your hands has come up to grab a fistful of your hair. You absently notice how heavy you feel, like your knees weren't made for this body, like you were not meant to stand on them. You finally, finally stand up. You'd feel proud if it weren't so fucking pathetic.

_You think she wouldn’t lie to you Dave? Fuckin' dumbass. She would say anything to get you to stop talking to her. She doesn’t want to listen to you, to deal with you, she doesn’t give a fuck!_

You’re not even trying to fight back anymore, it’s just too much energy that you don’t have. Right now you’re crying and your head hurts and you’re torn between heading for the kitchen and for your window. It’s so nice and the breeze would feel lovely against your heated face and it’s so fucking high up and _it would be so easy._

You feel your body wrench out a sob, and through the haze it almost startles you with how pained it sounds. You’re all but completely unaware of anything besides the pain in your chest and your throat and your head and your own absolute worthlessness. And the kitchen, the kitchen, _the kitchen._

You take a few steps toward your door before the nagging comes back, decidedly quieter than before.

_No one cares, kid._

It kind of sounds like your brother, you think.

_And they’re right not to, aren’t they?_

Yeah, they are.

Your feet change direction without you really thinking about it. You stagger over to the window, your breathing quieter but your heart hammering away in your chest. You’re standing in front of your window, staring. 

Yeah, they are. 

You release the lock and pull up the glass. 

You hear your phone buzz with another message but you can’t find it in yourself to care. It’s like your mind is a continuous hum that you just don’t feel like putting the effort in to muddle through at the moment. You breathe in the hot city air, filling your lungs with the smell of dusk and asphalt. 

And suddenly your heart feels like it’s going to explode out of your chest. Only a few times have you felt this sort of fear in your life, the primal fear of knowing that death is near. Only the couple of times that your brother had had exceptionally bad days and, despite your begging, dragged you out to the roof and barely threw you a sword before beating the shit out of you. 

Your crying comes back ferociously, and your hands are shaking so bad that you miss grabbing the top of the window pane a few times before your fingers catch and you slam it down hard enough that the glass shakes. 

You need to leave this room.

You quickly abscond, and the long abandoned thought of water suddenly comes to mind. You head for the kitchen without really feeling your feet hit the ground. Your heart rate hasn’t slowed down, nor has your breathing. You scramble for a glass in the cabinet, effectively knocking one down to its shattering doom on the floor. You fill it up with gross sink water and start chugging. You’re pretty sure you remember Rose telling you not to do that but you just don’t care. 

You refill the glass and start drinking it more slowly this time. You try not to think about anything as best as you can but your own brain’s fucking taunting has gotten to you. Slowly your mind begins to come back to you. You are able to go through a list of everything, reconciling the panic with reality.

You can do the laundry when you’re feeling better. It hasn’t gotten that bad.

You swept the floors this morning, remember? Your socks were getting gray from walking around the house. If bro raised you to do nothing else, he at least raised you to recognize when something needs cleaning (and put you to work real fast, too).

There are no dishes in the sink, although now you have one to sweep up off the floor when you’re feeling less… risky. 

You have already outlined that project and finished your part of it. The only reason it isn’t done is because the moron your teacher paired you up with has no idea what the concept of “due date” means. It doesn’t matter, because it is graded individually anyway. You have nothing to worry about right now. 

You’re fine, you point out to the critical audience that is yourself. You’re ok, right now. You don’t have to be productive. You can be lazy today (your conscience still recoils at the dangers presented by doing so but you’ll worry about that later).

You slide to sit on the relatively clean but slightly-glass-covered floor and put your head in between your knees. You feel your heart rate finally start to go back to normal, accompanied by your breathing. That vacillation can’t be good for you but you don’t worry about it. Getting medication for it means having bro take you to the doctor and then even worse talking to someone about your head. 

You tried that once, with Rose over a skype call. You had both lapsed into a comfortable silence and for once you felt confident enough to start to say something. _“Rose, do you ever feel like… like you know your chest is too… heavy and y-your heart and your head hurts… and uh… wow that was rough haha never mind I’ll come back when I learn English haha.”_ You tried to laugh it off and you continued on a few other extended metaphors explaining how rough your linguistics were but damn if your throat didn’t start to tighten up and your mouth didn’t suddenly decide to dry out like the fuckin’ Sahara. She tried to hold on to it, though, so hard, her concern both endearing and frightening. You finally convinced her to drop it but she brings it up every now and again in subtle ways. 

You drink the last bit of your metallic water and do a quick run-down. How long has it been? An hour? Two? God, you wasted so much. Worry about it later. Your breathing is back to normal, your heart rate is ok, and your hands are only shaking a little bit. You are so, so exhausted. You head back to your room, careful to avoid looking in the direction of the window on the way to your bed. You really need to screw that thing in place. But what will Bro say? What if he asks why? What if he-?

No no no, stop. You’re fine. Worry about it tomorrow. You fall into your bed. Back to square one. Except your ass feels like its ran around the board a few times, and instead of collecting $200 you just get a dramatic ass _scene_. You reach to your phone and this time you make it, putting on some soft music before you resume staring at the ceiling that has become a well-used view.

It’s dark outside, but you can still hear the familiar and now-comfortable sounds of the city, cars on the asphalt and people and the occasional ambulance wailing. Your whole body feels heavy and your head is throbbing. Your chest feels kind of empty, but hey, you guess it’s better than it hurting. Something soft and lazy comes on. 

You drift off thinking about your chores and the ceiling and the smell of asphalt but for now, you decide not to worry.


End file.
